Cloud boom empowers business, creates new career opportunities

Tech June 30, 2015 13:38

By Chris Cheadle

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After more than a decade of rapid growth in the major economies across Asia-Pacific, people in the region are really benefiting from advances in business productivity and enhanced communications, enabled by the flexibility of cloud computing coupled with

And these changes are opening up job opportunities for the connected, tech-literate population.

IT analyst Gartner predicts Apac investment in public cloud services climbing 14 per cent to US$7.4 billion (Bt250 billion) this year and reaching $11.5 billion by 2018. But what is driving this investment and why is it happening now?

Cloud computing is empowering enterprises by providing IT infrastructure, software and services through an Internet-based delivery model on a pay-as-you-go basis. Instead of maintaining their own equipment and IT assets, companies can concentrate on creating business value for their customers.

The pressing need for agility in the developing Apac economies creates a compelling environment for further cloud expansion as companies seek more sophisticated, flexible and accessible applications to support their growth plans.

Hardware can be made available as an infrastructure base – infrastructure as a service, or IaaS. The more visible software applications can also be delivered as a service – software as a service, or SaaS.

The most advanced cloud companies such as Oracle, complete the offering with a platform – platform as a Service, or PaaS – that provides ready access to tools to rapidly develop and run applications and tailor them for mobile connectivity.

This enables innovative companies to swiftly unleash their ideas, capitalise on disruptive business models and deliver the services their customers really value.

Apac countries have leapfrogged technology levels in telecom as well as computing infrastructure, skipping the clutter of generations of legacy phone lines and embracing mobile as the starting point for much of their infrastructure planning.

Customers can access cloud services and applications though the Internet and their mobile devices, wherever they are. The power of always-on, easily available IT services is changing the business and social landscape across Apac, raising customer expectations at the same time.

Only cloud computing will support the rapid deployment of new online products and services to meet the demands and high expectations of consumers across the region.

Oracle is a major cloud player in Apac, providing a complete range of business applications, platform software and infrastructure in the cloud – SaaS, PaaS and IaaS.

We are responding to the continued transformation of the business landscape by ramping up hiring of sales talent to support customer growth. The cloud industry provides great job opportunities for the new generation of digital enthusiasts who will help drive these innovations forward in Apac.

The cloud and mobile revolutions that have benefited businesses have also helped create a community of highly tech-literate people, and as a major employer here we’re proud to be an integral part of the development of the workforce in Apac.

Chris Cheadle is general manager and senior vice president of Oracle Asia-Pacific.